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honestly this is not correct from a communication perspective. Literally this is a team lead educating a junior developer who completely oversteps his bounds an
by apalmer 11y ago
honestly this is not correct from a communication perspective. Literally this is a team lead educating a junior developer who completely oversteps his bounds and does not even understand why this is an issue.
In dissecting your statement, "it's important that this server is configured correctly, so I think it would be better if I took care of it myself, if that's ok with you"
clause one is ok, but does not provide a 'why'. clause two leaves too much leeway as to whether the junior developer action is acceptable going forward. clause three is actively negative as it opens up debate for something that is not up for debate.
a proper communication would have been to take the junior somewhere away from anyone else, made sure that the tone of voice was unagressive but authorative, and stated something along the lines that, this is not a major issue but we need to have an important quick conversation, first explain that number 1 what the issue is, explain number two the underlying why, and explain what will happen go forward, make sure he understands this is not a debate, this is you giving him direction on what will occur going forward, i would give him an oppurtunity to meaningfully contribute in the future if it made sense, finally make sure he understands.
being to flimsy or wishy washy is NOT good communication
- DrJokepu 11y agoI get your point, but I think your management style is very different from mine. People overstepping their bounds getting reprimanded in an authoritative voice away from anyone else is simply not the kind of work environment I want to foster. If this is a recurring problem and previous, friendlier attempts have failed already then it's necessary to rephrase the message in a clear, authoritative manner but in my experience this is very rarely, if ever needed.
- apalmer 11y agoI am going to respectfully highlight why I think this is a mistake. The original communication does not actually communicate the underlying issue in this particular case. Its not a 'friendly' vs 'unfriendly' communication issue. Its an issue that the communication is NOT actually communicating what the intent of the message is. The intent of the message is 'this is not your responsibility, although you intend to help you are actually making more work for others not less, do not do this or similar things again, without consulting the person who's responsibility it is beforehand' thats the message. the way its phrased if the person is a senior he is going to understand what you are 'really' telling him in nice words. if the person is a junior he is going to think you are really entering a debate about how this should be approached, and that you need to reach consensus with him about the approach, and that although you didnt accept his contribution this time, next time or next situation this may be a reasonable way to contribute to the team. you have communicated the wrong thing to your target audience. its bad communication. its not 'unfriendlier' to communicate directly what you actually mean and to provide clear guidance and correction to a junior.